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Thousands Flee Athens Fires

Raging fires behind the Acropolis in Athens early Sunday. More than 30,000 acres of forest, farming fields and olive groves were estimated to have been destroyed.Credit
Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ATHENS — Raging fires fanned by gusting winds moved across the northern suburbs of Athens on Sunday, destroying homes and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate.

The unchecked wildfires burned for a third day, racing through a group of 14 towns tucked along the northeast fringes of Athens, the capital, and fire break zones erected on Mount Penteli, the last natural barrier shielding the Athenian plain.

The blaze began late Friday in Grammatikos, 25 miles northeast of Athens, and spread southeast, feeding on vast swaths of pine trees and olive groves.

By midday Sunday, the authorities ordered the evacuation of 20,000 residents in Aghios Stefanos, a suburb 14 miles north of Athens, where the fires devoured homes and pine and olive groves.

He said the local police were ordering residents to move to districts farther south, though roads were clogged with traffic. Thick plumes of ochre smoke shrouded the Athens skyline.

Television images showed some panicked residents fleeing the fires on foot. Others, ignoring the order to evacuate, were using shovels, buckets, hoses and even tree branches to battle back the encroaching flames. No injuries had been reported by Sunday evening, officials said.

The harrowing images evoked August 2007, when the deadliest wildfires in recent Greek history raged for 10 days on the island of Evia and the western Peloponnese, killing at least 65 people and destroying thousands of acres of land.

With elections looming as early as March and the center-right government stung by a string of corruption scandals, the state’s response to the fires renewed criticism of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. Clinging to power with a one-seat margin in Parliament, Mr. Karamanlis had already faced anger for his government’s handling of the fires two years ago.

Wildfires occur frequently in Greece during the summer, caused by high temperatures, wind, drought or arson. More than 100 fires have broken out across the country since Friday.

In Marathon, which is northeast of Athens and is the city from which the long-distance race takes its name, authorities were scrambling on Sunday to save the archaeological site of Rhamnus, home of two 2,500-year-old temples.

The authorities said smaller-scale evacuations were ordered in Dionysos, a wealthy northern suburb of Athens.

“The situation is tragic,” said Yiannis Sgouros, governor of the greater Athens area. “Fires are out of control on many fronts.”

The government declared a state of emergency for greater Athens on Saturday, and requested assistance from the European Union for what authorities called “titanic efforts by firefighters” to contain the blazes.

Five firefighting planes and a helicopter were expected from France, Italy and Cyprus, but it remained unclear whether European rescue crews would also be flown in to assist Greek firefighters, who were stretched thin.

In all, 12 firefighting planes and nine helicopters were battling the blazes near Athens, which were estimated to have destroyed more than 30,000 acres of forest, farming fields and olive groves, according to the state television network NET.

More than 600 firefighters and soldiers were deployed Sunday after dramatic overnight evacuations at two children’s hospitals in the northern suburb of Penteli. Campsites, monasteries and nursing homes were also cleared out in villages and areas threatened by fires late Saturday.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Tens of Thousands Flee as Wildfires Race Through Athens Suburbs. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe